“I don’t think so.”
“Well, you’d know it if you had.”
The Dewar’s was disgusting and with every sip he vowed never to touch the stuff again, taking this time to concentrate on his drinking strategy for the next nine hours. The trick with drinking on planes was to pick the right stewardess early on and make her laugh. Then start with single orders, nothing too shocking, engaging her in an anecdote about one’s fear of flying. Getting her to laugh at the expense of some other passenger was always profitable, making the two of you part of an ill-defined gang. Without such groundwork one could attempt to order from different hostesses and hope they were unaware of the overall tally, but that was risky. One could be refused.
As in all aspects of life The Rot had corrupted the natural order of things. Christmas let out a fond sigh, remembering the era when you could smoke on planes and everyone drank like hell because they weren’t used to flying and no one gave a damn about how many you’d had and people were swapping seats and having fun. Back then you could get a stewardess to sit down with you and share a gin. These days they were more like nurses condescending the aisles of some outpatient day trip; could you turn that off, please? Could you turn that on, please? Who has the right to tell a grown man he’s had one too many miniatures? Not some used-looking ex-dancer with an orange face, that’s for sure.
Christmas felt drunk and spiteful. He attempted to walk to his gate but fell in behind a woman who was leading a suitcase on wheels. He stumbled over it, regained his footing and booted it sideways. The woman spun round.
“Did you just kick my bag?” she cried out in Spanish.
“I thought,” replied Christmas in English, “it was your dog. Do, I mean to say, please pass on my apologies to your valise, that is to say, to whit and so forth—” he paused to flurry his hand like a composer with something on the end of his baton “—in said action the court finds in favour of the plaintiff, if it pleases your honour, humble regards, deep, prodigious bows and bowels. Case!” he stiffened like a drill sergeant, “Dis-missed!” and off he marched.
Christmas strode past the vast windows and took in the planes taxiing into position. This was the first time he had been in Spain since he and his wife Emily had given up their house in Benhavis.
They had spent their holidays there, driving out from Malaga airport, bleach green golf courses slicking through the burnt hills, rows of spotless time-shares staring out to sea. Their place looked down into the village and they would lie in bed getting pissed, a breeze coming in from the balcony carrying sounds of children and their neighbours arguing. Scottish couple. What were they called? Tarrant? Tavish? Tavistock? Emily fell out with the wife. Something to do with the free English class they both used to give the kids there. Always helping someone, old Emmy. Except me, thought Christmas with a smile, always telling me to get off my arse.
He remembered her standing at the foot of their bed, trying to decide what to wear for a dinner with the neighbours to try and patch things up.
“I’m getting fat, Pops,” said Emily. “Look at this dress. It used to be sexy. Now it looks bloody ridiculous.”
“Oh come on, Em,” he said, shifting himself down the bed towards her. She was twisting in front of the mirror, and getting upset. “You look beautiful.”
“I do not.”
“Yes you do.” He grabbed her waist and toppled her back onto the bed while she protested and fought.
“I’m getting old,” she mumbled as he kissed her, “old and fat. It’s not fair. It’s all right for you – you’re a man.”
He pulled up her dress and kissed her belly and said, “If you get an inch thinner or lose a single grey hair I will divorce you, because you are the most perfect woman on earth and I love you more than life itself.”
Emily looked at him and said, “What fucking grey hair?”
6
Christmas arrived at the gate to find his flight delayed. There was a coffee bar nearby. He bought a large cappuccino and, trying to wriggle between two chairs, spilt it on a blond businessman. “For God’s sake!” Christmas exclaimed, as if he were the one whose testicles felt as if they had just been dipped in a fondue. The man jumped up, face ablaze. “I mean what’s the point?” agreed Christmas. The man swore in some Nordic language. Christmas nodded thoughtfully, noticing that the seat he was going for was now taken. “Chin up, old man,” he said, sitting down at his victim’s table, “helps get the noose over.”
“Will you apologise?” bayed the man in crisp, sturdy English. Christmas never apologised. It was always an invitation to trouble.
“Do you know, I’ve never met a Nordic who couldn’t speak perfect English,” he said. “What age do they start you off? Two? Three?” The man stared down at Christmas for a long moment and then dismissed him with a wave of his hand. He gave a gruff curse and then sat back down at his computer, dabbing his crotch with a paper napkin. Christmas, alive with whisky, started to find him funny.
“You know the best thing to do if you don’t want that stain is to throw your trousers away.”
“I do not wish to talk to you.”
“Perfectly understandable, perfectly understandable, and I’ll say again, perfectly understandable. Now if I were to—”
“With,” seethed the man, “respect, please just—”
“Oh dear!” exclaimed Christmas, “If you are going to insult me, don’t say ‘with respect’. It’s without respect! Surely that’s the point. Now, without respect, I’m a ...?”
“...”
“A bastard?”
“...”
“And you wish I’d just go away?”
“You—”
“There, you see! OK, so now I know how you feel, we can have a conversation. Fuck off.”
“How—!”
“You just called me a bastard, so I’m saying ‘fuck off’.”
“I did no—”
“We all heard you!” declared Christmas, motioning to the passengers grazing around them, “and I said, ‘Fuck off!’. We’re trading insults, man, wake up!”
“Will you—Leave this table right now, will you, please.”
“That’s the spirit!” cheered Christmas.
“I am giving you warning.”
“Fantastic!”
“I shall not be responsible for the consequences.”
“Oh come on,” booed Christmas, “you were doing so well, but that ‘responsible for the consequences’ stuff is really—” The man stood up and cuffed Christmas about the face the way some people hit their dogs. Then he slammed his computer shut and stormed off.
Christmas held his face, absorbing what had just happened. “Snow Nazi!” he called after the man. Satisfied that both he and his public had drawn a line under the incident, Christmas decided he should inspect for damage.
Once facing the toilet’s mirrors, he exercised his jaw, advancing and retreating from his reflection. There was no mark. He shrugged the drunken shrug of a drunken shrugger, then arched his top lip as far down toward his chin as it would go. This new moustache really was dapper.
7
“This is your Iberian Airways flight IB412 to Caracas ...” At least here in his seat he should be spared any more unpleasantness from all the travelling Neanderthals who seemed bent on ruining his passage. The Rot was everywhere.
The last seven years had seen a grave acceleration in England’s decline. The Rot, that corroding plasma of infantilisation that Christmas could see smeared over everything, was now filling the country’s lungs. Christmas couldn’t breathe. More enslavement to the little screens, more uniformity, fewer individuals. The culture was mewling and puking and soiling itself and all its adults were dead. Yes, he thought again, examining the runway, the William Slade situation had brought a rather sharp focus to his plans, but this trip to Venezuela had been decided long ago. There was nothing left for him in England. He would stay at least a month or two, but if some opportunity arose, some chance of company or profit, then
he would certainly stay longer, and at that boozy moment he felt good fortune to be inevitable. Christmas closed his eyes. Latin America ... Dust and passion and blood and poetry. Floppy-hatted peasants playing guitar and drinking rum while you spirited away their feisty daughters. Now what was it that Emily’s grandmother used to bang on about? Em-pan-adas: delicious fried pastries on every street. Sunsets that could move you to tears. Salsa. The friendliest people on earth. Surely an adventurer like himself could flourish in a land like that. Ca-ra-cas. Wasn’t it a fine word? Did not the very timbre of its capital promise a city he could no longer find in Europe, one whose ‘historic centre’ had not been embalmed for tourists, one where The Rot’s flag was not fluttering from every miserable corner?
The plane pulled away from the earth. Once the seat belt signs were off, Christmas pressed the call button. He had already spent several minutes trying to work out whether this particular stewardess was pretty or not and now she was approaching ... Was she or wasn’t she? Those slender legs, yes. Her shoulders, somewhat rounded, no. Her face, on balance, no, but now she was pulling her hair back, yes, though as she was about to speak he noticed a cluster of spots on her forehead ...
“Yes?”
“No.”
“Perdona?”
“But yes to a drink! Do you have any decent scotch?”
“Yes, Señor. If you could wait a moment we will be—”
“I am sorry to bother you,” he said in Spanish, “but flying makes me very nervous.”
“Oh really?”
“Very nervous I’m afraid, I ... we ... I mean to say my wife Emily and I, we ... had a bad experience a long time ago. When she was still alive.” He looked into the stewardess’ eyes as deeply as he could. They were light brown. Trading on your dead wife’s memory for a drink. You’re in hell, Christmas. You are in a bar in hell.
“Well, why not,” he muttered. “Why shouldn’t it do some fucking good? I’ve bloody well survived a near-murder today, for fuck’s sake!” He felt the eyes of the couple next to him. The stewardess brought him a scotch. He downed it. The stewardess brought him another. Then he had two bottles of red wine with the meal. He watched a movie about people who evidently detested themselves treating each other terribly yet being somehow happy with the outcome. Then he had two more scotches. Then he had a beer.
A man listening to his iPod began thrapping out a drumbeat on his fold-down table. It was annoying everybody. Christmas swung out of his seat. He lurched over to the man and thrapped out a quick rhythm on his head. The man pulled out his earphones in astonishment.
“Do hope you enjoyed my drumming as much as we’re enjoying yours.”
“What – who – who the hell do you think you are?”
Christmas paused to consider his response. “Harold Agapanthius Christmas,” he decided, “at your bloody disservice. I don’t hope you do have a pleasant flight,” and with that he returned to his seat. Another passenger gave him a secret thumbs-up. Christmas gave a sarcastic thumbs-up back. He drank another whisky. One of the stewardesses asked him if everything was all right. The iPod man had made a complaint.
“I mistook his skull for the overhead locker,” he replied. The stewardess gave him a weak smile. Christmas got the sense that something was unravelling.
The progress map appeared on the overhead screen. They were above St Lucia. He saw the word ‘CARACAS’. Christmas felt a swell of enthusiasm dampened only by heartburn. Good heavens, he said to himself, I am roaring drunk.
“Roaring drunk!” he repeated out loud and found it so funny that he let out a roar, such as a lion might make. If it were drunk.
More people came to ask him if he was all right. Someone offered him water. He batted them away like flies. He examined the people sitting next to him. He suddenly felt as if he wanted to talk to them, to find out about their lives. He felt a warmth for them, and that warmth started in his stomach. They were a young couple. The man was spindly, with glasses and rather bad skin about the nose. The woman was plump, in an ill-fitting top that allowed a girdle of flesh to hang over her jeans. They were holding hands and looking out the window, stiff with hope that he wouldn’t talk to them. Christmas thought this a pleasant scene.
“I say,” he began, “terrific.” The couple turned to him as he nodded to the window, “Mountains. Cloudy. Terrific. Mountains, aren’t they?” Jesus, he thought, I really am pissed. The couple smiled awkwardly and looked back at the terrific cloudy mountains wishing they were stranded on one, or indeed anywhere but next to this ageing beast.
“Going to Caracas?” asked Christmas.
“This is a plane to Caracas, yes,” replied the boyfriend with a heavy accent that Christmas couldn’t place.
“Been there before?”
“No.”
“Is it easy to get a taxi at the airport?”
“I don’t know. We’ve never been there.”
“You know I remember once when I was your age, down near Malaga with my wife, there was this taxi chap down there – what was his name? Kamal? Was it Kamal? Kermit? Anyway – had a terrific drug problem. Sold everything in his flat except this huge old fridge. Hid in the bloody thing for two weeks. Absolutely paranoid. Was convinced that the police surveillance X-ray mind reading frequencies or what have you couldn’t penetrate through the metal lining in the fridge ...” and he was off. He talked and drank and drank and talked “... and then did you hear about that chap from Oxford? Invited four hundred people from the phone book whose last name ended in ‘bottom’ and then didn’t show up so they all had to introduce themselves, ‘I’m Mrs Higginsbottom. I’m Mr Ramsbottom. We’re the Bottoms ...” Christmas was guffawing loudly. The stewardess asked him to lower his voice. Then she refused to serve him another drink and told him he should try to sleep. He told her to go away. The terrific cloudy mountains seeped into his brain. At one point he could remember telling the girl next to him not to slouch. He tried to put a hand on her shoulder to help her with this correction when the boyfriend knocked it away.
“Hey, just chill out, OK? Relax.” It was a bad thing to say to Christmas. Nothing infuriated him more than being told to ‘chill out’ or ‘relax’ by someone other than a doctor holding a defibrillator.
“Oh, I see ... dreadfully ... I should relax, should I? I should ‘chill out’, should I? That’s what I should do, is it? That’s your professional opinion, is it?”
“Look,” started the girl, “why don’t you just—”
“And what is your profession, young lady?”
“I’m a sports therapist.”
“And what’s this then?” laughed Christmas. He had two inches of her flab between thumb and finger. “Eh? What the devil is all this?”
Threats ensued. His stewardess appeared with back-up and Christmas noted with surprise that she had completely lost her friendly demeanour. There was some admonishment, some arrangement he was dimly aware of. The alcohol began to rub him out. Another interaction with more senior members of the crew came next, but Christmas would always remain unsure of what exactly transpired. He did have a memory of being in the toilet and laughing. When he awoke they were one hour away from Caracas and his trousers were on the wrong way round. The seats next to him were empty. He passed out again. When he came to the whole plane was empty. They were on the ground.
He took his Panama from the overhead locker and gathered his things while being watched by the crew. “Adios,” he smiled to his stewardess on the way out. She didn’t reply. So, with head high and breath bad, Christmas walked through the airport, past the U-bend of passengers nervous for their luggage, towards the taxi drivers and moneychangers. He showed his passport, nodded to the soldiers and strode out into Venezuela.
8
Christmas awoke with a start. He had been dreaming that a clown lover was trying to run him over in her tiny car. Where the devil am I? he thought. Bloody hell. Caracas. Christmas pulled his tongue off the pillow, pushed his eyes to the front and swung out of bed. He opene
d the curtains. There were the El Ávila Mountains, a cable car plotting its way to the top. He drank all the bottled water in the room. He went back to bed, his belly uncomfortably stretched, battling an old feeling of dread that was always worse with the hangovers. He closed his eyes and rummaged through other thoughts. He found some that were pinned to the future and dressed his mind in their confidence. Venezuela. Everything would be better here.
He got up again. He went into the bathroom. “Morning, Christmas,” he said to a group of Christmases all standing off at an angle from one another. Christmas made a slight bow to them. They all bowed back. Christmas let out an oddly high-pitched fart. Everyone found it funny.
Down by the outdoor pool on the first floor, white and green striped awning covered the breakfasters. Skyscrapers rose up beside them. Women read magazines on sun-loungers and trailed their hands in the water. Inside, Christmas violated the buffet. Scrambled eggs, streaky bacon, hash browns, waffles, syrup, fruit salad, orange juice. He sat down with a copy of the International Herald Tribune as his guest. Once he had grown tired of the newspaper he amused himself by observing the business people in relaxed mode – bare white ankles sticking out of yachting shoes, knowing laughter, rigidly pressed shirts and shorts. They all looked desperate.
He was disappointed with the coffee – far too bitter – but he drank a vaseful anyway, beckoning refill after refill until he could feel it hot-wiring his subterranean ignitions. Christmas decided to explore the hotel. He walked its corridors and discovered restaurants. He went into the business centre. He found conference rooms being prepared and came out into a shopping arcade. From a walkway he saw a man living under the flyover opposite fixing his roof with a new cardboard box. He re-entered the hotel. He went into the gym. He inspected the Jacuzzi.
“Feel like a work-out, sir?” said the receptionist.
“Don’t be ridiculous,” he scoffed.
A Bright Moon for Fools Page 3
